Behind Enemy Lines
by paganpunk2
Summary: Late summer, 1944. Dex is on his way to present an invention that will end the stalemate in eastern France to Allied Command, but traitorous elements within the Legion have other plans for him and his machine. When both he and Sky Captain end up trapped behind enemy lines, the race is on to escape before the Nazis catch on to the double prize within their grasp.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note: Hello, all. It's been a while since I posted anything Sky Captain, and I've been playing around with this piece for a while now, so I thought I'd go ahead and start putting it up. For anyone who is following my original fiction as well as my fan fiction, I have a new short story up on my website (jleehazlett dot com) and will be posting some travel writing as well as fan fiction updates over the coming weeks.**

 **Happy reading!**

* * *

They were high above the gray clouds that had been blanketing western Europe for days, but Joe's mood was far from bright. "Norton, where the hell do you think you're going?" he radioed irritably. "You're off your heading by thirty degrees."

A beat passed before he received a response. "Sorry about that, sir."

Joe sighed and rolled his eyes. It was miserable work tagging along with cargo carriers between England and France. Usually he wouldn't have touched such a chore. Dex was on board the C-47 that Norton was piloting, though, and that changed everything. There hadn't been a Luftwaffe plane spotted near Paris in several weeks, but that didn't mean that Joe was going to let his best friend go winging across the Channel without an armed escort. Since Frankie was somewhere over the Mediterranean and there was no one else he trusted to ensure Dex's safety so close to the front, the task fell to him.

"Just correct it," he ordered now. The sooner they got on the ground the better. Once they touched down the directions from which an attack could come would be far fewer, and could be mitigated with less risk. Up here the enemy might appear from anywhere. Even if they stayed away, the dangers inherent in simply being airborne were numerous. Joe regretted for the dozenth time that he hadn't forced Dex to ride with him rather than with the top-secret force field generator that the engineer was taking to present to Allied command. Norton was good at what he did, but he was no Sky Captain.

In fact, at the moment Norton wasn't being impressive at all. The nose of his C-47 was still pointed stubbornly off-course, and there didn't appear to be any reason for it. "I presume you know where Paris is, Norton?" Joe barked into his handset.

"Yes, captain."

"Would you care to explain why you don't seem to be headed there, then? It's just that you're more on course for Berlin right now. I'm sure you gather why that's problematic."

The line opened from the other end as if a reply was imminent, but all Joe heard was a scuffle in the background. When Norton finally spoke, he repeated himself. "Yes, captain."

Joe's eyes narrowed. Was the other pilot saying that he understood the problem and wold fix it, or – god forbid – that he _knew_ he was about to overshoot his target and head straight for Nazi Germany? "...Norton," he said slowly, "turn the plane."

"Sorry, sir. I can't do that."

"You can't, or you won't?"

"I won't."

An icy trickle of fear rolled down Joe's spine. "Let me speak to Overmeyer or Dixon." Norton was clearly out of his mind, but maybe his co-pilot and navigator were still sane.

"They'll tell you the same thing, captain."

It took Joe a minute to peel his suddenly-dry tongue from the roof of his mouth. "Then let me speak to Dex."

"He's a bit tied up for that. So are the wrench-monkeys he brought with him."

Joe thought fast. Norton and his crew had turned traitor and were busy carting Dex and two others into enemy territory. He was the only person who was free and not part of the plan who knew what was going on, but he could do nothing about it. There was no way for him to move from his plane to Norton's in order to take it back, and no way to force the other man to land without purposefully damaging the C-47 and risking everyone on board. Calling for back-up wasn't an option, as the rest of the Legion was too far away to help and the RAF and Army-Air Force would think opening fire was a grand solution to a rogue air crew. Telling them what and who was being held captive would only make them more keen to ensure neither man nor machine fell into German hands. He was stuck, and he saw no way out.

"Not much you can do, captain," Norton said. "We've thought it all out. Your only options are to let us go or knock us out of the sky, and I know you won't shoot at us."

"Do you think so, Norton? Because you're wrong." It was a lie, but Joe made it sound like a threat. "Turn around. I'm warning you."

"You're bluffing. You know we have Dex, and you won't touch us so long as he's on board and alive."

"And how do I know he's still alive? I haven't heard from him since we took off. You might have murdered him the instant you left the ground."

Nothing came through for a long, terrible moment. Then, miraculously; "...Cap?"

Joe gripped the radio so tight that his knuckles whitened. "Dex. Are you-?"

The engineer cut him off. "Cap, you've got to shoot us down."

"Watch your mouth!" Norton commanded nearby.

"Dex-"

"You can't let the Nazis have what we're carrying. You know what it is. You know it will change everything." His voice grew distant, and Joe surmised that he was being dragged away from the radio. "Shoot us down, Joe! You have to-"

The transmission broke for a moment. When it came back it was Norton on the other end. "There. You know he's alive, and that's all you're getting out of us." A beat passed. "Your move, captain."

The line went dead once more. Joe tried to get Norton to pick up again, but it was no good. Flummoxed, he buried his face in his hands. The three crew members on the C-47 were good men, known to both him and Dex; how could things have gone so wrong with them?

That question plagued Joe as they slipped over the invisible line that marked the beginning of enemy airspace. He had no answer for it, and his indecision about what to do now deepened as he ran through scenarios in his head. If Dex was delivered to the Nazis and they managed to figure out his machine – or, he shuddered, if they managed to torture its function out of him – the Allies would be thrown back into the Atlantic for good. But at least in German hands Dex would be alive. They might try and force him to work on some dark project of their own, but they weren't likely to kill him. If the C-47 went down with him in it, though, Dex could easily end up dead or irreparably injured. Even if he walked away from the crash there was still a good chance that he would be captured, thus making the whole effort useless.

One man versus the course of the war. It should have been an easy choice, but so long as Dex was that one man and Joe was making the decision it couldn't be. Dex had told him to take down the C-47, but that didn't matter because it was exactly what Sky Captain had expected him to say. No, he couldn't do it, even if it was what he ought to do. Not so long as there was even the slightest hope of getting his engineer back alive and in more or less one piece.

The larger plane lurched without warning. For a moment it seemed as if it had meant to turn, and had then changed its mind. Joe watched closely, hope and terror mingling in his chest. Maybe Norton or his cronies had had a change of heart. Maybe the captives had broken free and were trying to take control. The thought of Dex trying to take on three men with guns in an enclosed space wasn't pleasant, but-

Another twitch came, this one so violent that the C-47's wings went almost perpendicular to the flat cloud bank below. "Watch you don't roll it," Joe advised through his handset. The sun's glare kept him from seeing through the windshield of the other plane, but he was now almost certain that there was a battle being waged inside the cockpit. Dex could fly well enough when he needed to; if he could just get behind the yoke, everything might still be okay. They could turn around nice and easy and get back to Paris, where Joe would ensure that Dex never left the ground in a plane piloted by anyone else again.

There was no time for him to indulge in that daydream now, though. The C-47 had leveled out, and at its new angle the light's reflection off of the windows wasn't as bad as it had been. Someone in khaki had slipped into the pilot's seat, and Joe strained his ears towards the radio. He couldn't vouch for either of the technicians, but if it was Dex flying there would be a transmission as soon as the situation was stable. Let it be Dex, and let this nightmare be over...

The person in the cockpit reached towards the handset. Before he could pick it up he was pitched forward onto the control boards. A broad splash of red hit the glass. Then the plane's nose tilted downward into a dive, and the body – it was a body now, not a living person, Sky Captain felt that much in his guts – tumbled backwards and out of sight.

The hopeful breath that Joe had taken in rushed back out as a scream of denial. Surely, _surely_ he hadn't just watched his best friend be murdered. Norton would be a fool to blow out the very brains he had promised to deliver to the Nazis. Alive or not, though, nobody was likely to walk away from the plunge to earth that had just been initiated. "Pull up, damn it!" he shouted uselessly. "Somebody down there _pull up_!"

But the C-47 sank into the clouds and vanished.


	2. Chapter 2

There were several reasons why it was madness to follow. Visibility might be nil all the way to the ground; there might be an entire battalion of German anti-aircraft gunners waiting below the weather; the C-47 might be wrestled back into obedience where he couldn't see and rise right into him. Joe knew all of those risks, but he bolted after Dex anyway. He couldn't turn back now, not after he'd dogged Norton's steps all this way. Not while he might still be able to salvage something of the situation. Not so long as there was hope.

After all, if their roles were reversed Dex would never even consider leaving _him_.

So Joe dropped down into the thick, wet wall of weather that had swallowed his quarry. Blankness that his desperate gaze couldn't penetrate closed in. It taunted him, thinning out here and there as if it were about to let him through and then swelling back to opaqueness. When his altimeter read four thousand he was forced to slow his descent. The odds were good that they were over the hills of eastern France, and while those weren't exactly tall they were much higher than the flat coastal airfield he'd set his gauges at. Lowering himself a hundred feet at a time, he made wide circles lest he miss something when the world finally came into view. "Come on," he murmured as nothing changed. "Come on, you've got to be here somewhere if you didn't pull up..."

It took six and a half cycles for his luck to kick in. Rolling hills and scattered forests spread out below as he broke through the ceiling. He pressed his forehead against the cold glass of his canopy and stared downward, searching for any sign of the C-47. For a minute there was no evidence that it had come through here at all. Then, suddenly, there was all too much.

Someone had managed to level the aircraft out and point it towards a clearing, and as a result the debris from the crash was spread over an area a quarter of a mile in length rather than consolidated in a smoking crater. The more-or-less intact tail section lay forlornly at one end of the long, scarred field. Further along was a single wing that had snapped off and sailed away from the main wreckage. It stuck up from the ground at an angle, cantilevered into the dirt by its momentum. There were a hundred bits of scattered scrap after that, then a hulk of metal that reminded Joe of a giant crushed can. With a start he realized that he was looking at the remnants of the C-47's main fuselage.

It wasn't the sort of disaster that was likely to yield survivors, but he had to know for certain. There was no room for him to land in the same clearing as the wreckage if he wanted to take off again, so he touched down instead on the far side of a thicket. "Gun," he muttered, checking his sidearm before he rose from his seat. "Watch," he said, and caressed the gadget on his wrist with one thumb. The timepiece had been his last birthday gift from Dex, and it had more tricks hidden in it than he'd yet had reason to use. He paused, then bent down and pulled a greasy canvas bag from under his chair. "...First aid kit," he grimaced, and slung it over his shoulder.

No one opposed him as he crossed the open field he'd parked in, but he kept one hand on his weapon anyway. Joe had no doubt that they were inside German lines, and possibly inside Germany itself, and he wasn't taking any chances. Glancing behind himself, he slipped into the trees. The world was dim beneath the late-summer canopy, and he had to take his time to keep from tripping over hidden roots. When he finally stepped out of the woods it was to find that thin wisps of smoke had begun to rise from the main body of the plane. Face pinching, he picked up his pace. If the thing blew up before he got to it then all of his efforts would have been in vain.

Reaching the ragged hole where the tail had been attached, he stooped down and crawled inside. The small flashlight he carried as a matter of course revealed the extent of the damage inside the plane. Dozens of holes had been torn in the skin of the aircraft, and the resulting shrapnel had shredded everything it touched. Wires hung down in several places, sparking occasionally and threatening to electrocute anything that walked blindly into them. The ceiling, which had until recently been a wall, only allowed him to stand at a stoop. He straightened anyway, cricking his neck in order to save his hands and knees from the ragged floor.

Dex's generator was still strapped down in the cargo area, but it had been shaken past its endurance limit. Joe tried not to step on anything as he picked his way through the litter of rods and components it had thrown. A corpse in a Legion air crew uniform drew a glare from him when he reached the machine's far side. Usually he felt remorse when he lost an employee, but traitors didn't deserve sympathy in his book. He moved past it without looking to see which of the three it was. All that mattered was that it wasn't Dex.

A khaki sleeve caught his eye as he squeezed into the section set up for passengers. Pulse quickening, he pulled the figure from beneath a splintered bench. There was a low, choked moan, and the vaguely familiar mechanic he'd found looked up at him. "Norton," the man spluttered, sending a thin trail of dark liquid down his chin. "...Bastard..."

"Yes, I know it was Norton," Joe said quickly. "But where's Dex? Did you see what happened to him?"

"Nuh-uh." A shudder. "...'S cold in France, isn't it?"

It was plain that whichever one of Dex's helpers this was didn't have long to live. Joe usually wasn't bothered that he didn't know most of his engineer's lackeys – he memorized all the airmen, and that was enough to keep straight – but now it felt like a deficiency on his part. He would have liked to address this man personally, to make him feel cared for in his final moments. Before he could do more than open his mouth to ask his name, however, the fellow coughed up another glut of blood and drew a harsh breath. That single inhalation seemed to suck all of the oxygen out of the air, and Joe couldn't understand how the second gasp managed to be louder than the first. The noise continued for several never-ending seconds before the body under his hands arched up in a last bid for life. Then it settled back slowly, and the world went silent and still.

Joe stared at the other man for a second, half-convinced that he might see the clue he was looking for flash by in the inky depths of his dying pupils. There was nothing there for him, though, and he eventually pushed himself away. He had to hurry; something was smoldering in the wreckage, and if it caught hold of a bit of fuel while he was still in here he would be left as dead as everyone else.

A shattered pile of steel had partially blocked the cockpit. Joe climbed over it, cursing when he nicked his thumb on a sharp edge. The light was better up front, and he didn't need his flashlight in order to make out the three forms crumpled behind the pilots' seats. Dixon's red hair made him easy to identify. Sprawled opposite Dixon was Norton, his mouth open in a permanent scream. The third corpse in the group was half-buried, but it had clearly belonged to the person whose head had been splattered across the windshield. Biting the insides of his cheeks, Joe knelt beside the body and began to dig. "Please," he murmured as he pushed debris out of the way. "Please, don't be..."

An arm fell across his knees. Joe gulped as he picked it up and examined the hand at the end of it. Square fingers, meaty palms, dirty nails, and a wedding ring. None of those things were Dex's.

He could have kissed the cooling paw with joy as a strange half-cry, half-laugh started in his throat. His happiness faded as fast as it had come, though. He had now walked the entire length of the plane without finding his engineer. It was possible that there was another body under the rubble around the decapitated technician, but that didn't feel right. There just wasn't much room for an object the size of a man to hide in the remnants of the C-47. Then again, he'd searched much of the wreckage in the semi-darkness and with five other ruined forms distracting him. Had he missed something on his first pass, perhaps?

He worked his way aft again, shining his light into every crevice and reaching out a groping hand each time he couldn't identify what he was seeing. Before long he was back at the hole left by the tail. "What the hell, Dex?" he muttered as he climbed out into the progressively smokier clearing. It made no sense. Dex couldn't have vanished into thin air, yet there was no sign of him.

A faint rustle sounded behind him without warning. Recalling that he was in German-held territory, Joe drew his pistol and whirled on the noise. It was his preferred practice to look people in the face before he shot them, and at such close range as this it was easy to keep to his habit. Meeting his opponent's gaze had never caused him to falter before; this time, however, he froze. The person he'd been half a second from killing limped to a halt, then stood gazing between him and the pistol with a pained expression. "...I don't think a bullet will make my day any better, Cap."

Joe lowered his gun and hitched his jaw back into place. "Dex?" he whispered. "...Dex. You're...you're alive." His knees were weak as he closed the gap between them and pulled the other man into a tight embrace. "Thank Christ. You're alive."

"Alive-ish," came back against his shoulder as Dex leaned into him.

Joe pulled back and gave his friend a hard look. "'Ish'?"

"Kind of beat up. But I'll live." The corner of Dex's mouth twitched upwards, then flattened as he glanced towards the smoldering fuselage. "...They're all dead in there, aren't they?"

Joe hesitated. Dex was friendly with most of his mechanics, and the odds were good that he would mourn the two inside. Joe wished there was some way he could protect him from having to cope with grief on top of everything else right now, but he knew it was pointless to try. His engineer hadn't really been asking a question; all he was looking for was confirmation of what he already sensed. "...I'm sorry."

"Yeah...me, too." Dex turned his face away and blinked hard. "They were good guys," he said after a minute. "Tony and Reg, I mean."

Which one of them, Joe wondered privately, had he watched slip away without knowing his name? "I'm sure they were," he agreed. "And as for the others..." He trailed off. Dex was watching him in the sidewise way that he did when he knew exactly what was about to come out of his mouth, and it struck Joe how much Norton's scheme had nearly cost him personally. When he spoke again his voice was vengeful. "I look forward to settling things with them in hell."

A glimmer of satisfaction shone in Dex's damp gaze. "You're not going to hell, Cap," he objected mildly, "even if such a place exists anywhere but in people's heads. But I appreciate the sentiment."

"Right." They stood without words, their eyes locked on one another, for the space of a breath. Then Joe remembered that they were talking beside a potential fireball, and the same urgency that had earlier driven him to search the dangerous wreckage pushed him to now get as far away from it as possible. "Come on," he said. "I've left the plane in the next clearing." The limp he'd seen in the instant before he'd recognized his engineer rose to the front of mind. "You can make it that far, can't you?"

Dex peeked down at his left foot, which he was holding mostly off of the ground. "I can make it. I think it's just a sprain."

Joe offered his arm. "Here. There's no use in making it worse."

"Other side," Dex said. "My left hand's not so hot, either." A faint smile appeared on his lips. "Glad we've got your plane. Walking back to Paris isn't a very attractive thought right now."

They advanced across the clearing at a crawl. Joe tried to help, but his efforts were largely useless due to his being on the wrong side. He consoled himself with a plan to put the medic's bag banging against his hip to use once they reached the plane. There had to be something in there that he could wrap his friend's twisted ankle in, and his swollen hand as well. The first order of business once they were safely behind their own lines would be a doctor and bed rest, but that didn't mean that Dex ought to suffer untreated until then.

As they approached the tree line Joe broached the subject that had been plaguing him since he'd first seen the wreckage. "Dex, in the crash…how did you…?"

He didn't have to finish the sentence for Dex to understand. "I got lucky," the engineer replied. "I was back by the generator and trying to get an upper hand on Overmeyer when we went into that second turn. I don't know who had made it up to the front, but I heard you telling them not to roll the plane. As soon as we leveled off I started after Overmeyer again. He pulled out a gun, and I ducked. The thing went off right next to my ear," he winced. "It's still ringing, if you can believe that. Anyway, Overmeyer must have hit whoever was flying, because that's when we dove. I got thrown past the genny and into the wall, and the next thing I knew I was waking up in the tail. I peeked out, saw you disappearing into the rest of the fuselage, and...well...here we are."

Joe glanced towards the remains of the C-47's tail. The section that had cradled the man on his arm through the hard landing was no larger than a broom closet. If Dex had been in the main cabin when it hit dirt, or if the tail had rolled and bounced like the rest of the plane, he would have been killed. His survival and relatively unscathed status appeared to be the result of nothing more or less than a fortunate combination of physics. Drawing a deep breath. Joe hitched his load a little closer. Just a bit more luck and they'd be out of here. A bit more luck, and everything would be fine.

Navigating the strip of forest was far more difficult the second time around. The clouds had thickened overhead, and it was now dark as night under the trees. Joe kept his flashlight pointed at the ground and tried to follow the same path he had taken previously. There often wasn't room for the two of them to walk abreast, and after they'd struggled along for a bit Dex swore that he could manage on his own. Joe released him, then bit his tongue as he watched him half fall with every step.

They'd find some spacious suite in the city, he mused as he followed close behind, a place far away from the Legion's makeshift forward base. Left to his own devices Dex would be back on the shop floor in a day or two, and Joe refused to stomach that. No, Dex would keep his foot up, sleep often, and eat well for two weeks at the minimum. It would take at least that long for Joe to recover mentally from this latest too-close call with his friend's life.

Dex stopped just short of the next open field. "Need a break?" Joe asked, gripping his elbow. "I want to look at your-"

"Shh!"

He frowned, then followed Dex's gaze. Rain had begun to fall while they were under the forest's leafy umbrella, and their view was obscured. Peering through the haze, Joe managed to make out ten or twelve figures milling around his plane. The squad's dark gray uniforms, guns, and unfamiliar snippets of speech all added up to one thing; Wehrmacht. "Damn."

"That's a problem," Dex agreed. "If they don't recognize what they've got there then they're idiots."

"Well, they _are_ Nazis."

"That doesn't make them stupid, Cap. Some of the smartest people I've ever met are working for the other side. And you don't often see a group of imbeciles with the kind of luck the Germans have had these last few years." Dex leaned against a tree and craned towards the distant gathering. "I wish I could hear enough of what they're saying to translate..."

"Would it make a difference?" Joe didn't see how it could, since they were hard pressed to get to his plane regardless of what was being talked about.

"It might. If they know that's your plane, and if they find the crash, too...look, from what I heard Norton and the others saying they had a deal all set up with Berlin. High Command is expecting that C-47 to show up soon, and when it doesn't they'll want to know why. Here's their answer, and the fact that your plane is here too will verify that I was on board when the crash occurred. Unless everything behind us blows up before they can check it for bodies they'll know that you and I are still alive and on foot. The generator might be trashed, but I'm sure they'll take you as a substitute."

"What are you suggesting? Even if we were both armed and at one hundred percent, we're badly outnumbered. We can't very well fight them."

"Yeah..." A look of regret crossed Dex's face. "...I'm gonna need to borrow your watch for a second, Cap."

"What?"

"Your watch. Can I see it, please?"

Bemused, Joe unfastened the timepiece and handed it over. Dex laid it across the palm of his injured hand and set the bezel to twelve. Then he pressed all three of the small knobs along the side at the same time. The face of the watch swung open on a hidden hinge, revealing a single black button. Joe gasped, and Dex shot him a little grin. "Didn't know about that, did you?"

"No. But what does it do? And why didn't you tell me about it?"

Dex's smile faltered. "I didn't tell you about this part because I knew you'd never use it. To be honest," he confessed as he cast a sad look out at the plane he'd tweaked and rebuilt so many times over all the long years of their friendship, "I hoped that _I_ wouldn't ever have to use it, either."

A twinge of suspicion pinched in Joe's stomach. "Dex, what does that button do?"

"I'll make you a new one, Cap," Dex apologized. "A better one. I promise." Then he pushed the button down, and the fighter sitting in the field exploded.


	3. Chapter 3

Joe stared as flaming pieces of his beloved plane fell back to earth. The fact that there were a dozen or so Nazis mixed up in the mess was little comfort, and when he turned to Dex it was with a look of disbelief on his face. "...You blew up my plane," he said in the voice of a put-out four year old.

Dex lowered his eyes and blushed. "I know. I'm sorry. I had to. Um...don't kill me? Please?"

It was only half a joke. "You're about the only person I'd let get away with doing something like that."

"Yeah, well...don't hate me, then. Like I said, I'll build you another one." A beseeching glance searched Joe's expression. "...Friends?"

Upset as he was, Joe snorted at that. "What a stupid question."

"Sure, but..." Dex shrugged. "I blew up your plane. It seemed prudent to check."

"Dex..." Openness wasn't something that had ever come easily to Joe, but after the events of the last two hours he couldn't hold back the truth. "I could count on one hand the things I would be more upset about losing than my plane. You're one of them. All right?"

A fleeting smile relayed that that was exactly what Dex had hoped to hear. "Good. Here's your watch back."

"And where's the self-destruct button for it?" Joe asked as he strapped it into place. "Only I'd like to know so I have time to take it off my arm before it detonates."

"The plane is the only thing I've ever given you that has a self-destruct button. Honest."

Joe studied his friend's earnest expression for a moment, then shook his head and chuckled. Yes, his plane was gone, and that hurt, but it was a pain that could be gotten over. He still had Dex, and as he'd said a moment before that was what mattered. "All right," he allowed. "You had to blow up my plane to keep it from the Germans. Now we're stuck walking, unless you have a better idea."

Naturally, Dex did have a better idea. "What about the radio in the C-47? We could call for help."

As if on cue, a second blast sounded. Something had finally set off the remaining fuel in the broken airframe behind them, and judging from the magnitude of the explosion there wouldn't be much left when the flames died down. "...No, I don't think that will work, Dex. Just a hunch."

"Probably a pretty good one. So...west, then?"

"We might as well." Joe looked to the sky for directions out of habit, but between the leaves and the clouds there was no telling the sun's direction. "Ah..."

"You have a compass, Cap."

"...Right." Feeling like an idiot, he referred to one of the minuscule insets in his watch. "It's that way," he said, pointing.

"Then let's go. I don't really want to be here when the next group of Nazis comes by."

Before they were more than half a mile into their journey towards safety, Joe forced Dex to stop. "We're out of sight of both clearings," he insisted when the engineer looked quizzical, "and you can't walk all the way back to Paris on a sprained ankle. So sit down on that log and let me see your foot."

"Point taken," Dex sighed, and thumped down into his makeshift seat. He hesitated a moment, then extended his bad leg. "Go for it, I guess."

Joe exposed the damaged limb as gently as he could, but its owner still gave a hiss of pain. The pilot gave a _tsk_ of his own once he could see the bruised and tender flesh. "This looks terrible, Dex." The ankle cradled in his hands was still swelling, and Joe wasn't certain he'd be able to get it back into its boot. "Are you sure it isn't broken?"

"I don't know for sure, no. But I don't think I'd be able to use it at all if it was."

"Hmm..." Sprained or broken, there was nothing they could do besides wrap the joint tightly in bandages and hope it didn't worsen. When that was done Joe turned his attention to the battered fingers of Dex's left hand. He was too afraid of causing further injury to the digits to try and set them, but he felt confident enough in his medical abilities to strap them together atop a tongue depressor. "Anything else?" he asked as he pressed down a final piece of adhesive tape. "I'll know if you lie to me, so don't try."

"Just bumps and bruises, I think. Well, and my ear, but there's nothing you can do about that."

"Is it still ringing?" All Legion air crew members were issued .45 caliber pistols as a matter of course, and Joe had no reason to think that Overmeyer had been carrying something different today. The .45s were painfully loud when fired at arm's length; he could only imagine what having one go off right next to your ear would be like.

"Yeah. It's getting kind of throbby, too. Inside, I mean. It's weird, I can't really explain it."

Grimacing, Joe dug through the depleted first aid kit. "Here. Take this. It's only aspirin, but it might help."

"Thanks." Dex made a face as he swallowed the pills dry. "Ugh. You'd think they could make medicine taste better than it does. It can't be that hard, you know?"

"Are you suggesting we expand into pharmaceuticals once the war's over?" Joe teased.

"Boring. No thanks."

"Good. I can't fly a pill. Now stay here; I'm going to find you a crutch of some sort."

"Cap!"

He turned back. "What is it?"

"...Stay in sight, huh?"

Joe didn't answer, but he was careful to remain where Dex could see at least a glimpse of him while he searched for a solid stick. He would have stuck close even if the engineer hadn't made the request, for the sky was growing ever darker and there was no telling where or when an enemy patrol might come through. Urged on by that thought, Joe snapped a long, sturdy branch from a downed tree and hacked it clean of twigs with his pocket knife. "It's not pretty," he said once he'd carried it back, "but it should be about the right height."

Dex peered at the pole in the dusk and hefted it in his good hand. "Oak," he remarked. "Good choice." Planting one end firmly in the loose forest soil, he leveraged himself up. "Thanks, Cap. This'll work great."

They covered three more miles by Joe's estimate before the last light leached from the world. He made no mention of stopping, but simply reached out to take Dex's elbow so that they wouldn't become separated in the moonless night. With the flashlight turned off they could cross the open fields without fear of being seen, and the going should have been easier. The rain that had started when he'd still had a plane fell steadily, though, and each patch of open ground they encountered was more slippery than the last. Joe thought of this as nothing more than an inconvenience until the man limping at his side collapsed with a faint yelp. "Dex?" he queried, kneeling in the muck and feeling about for him. "Are you all right?"

"...Yeah," a half-groan answered. "I'm fine. I just lost my footing, that's all."

Their hands found one another, and Joe pulled Dex back onto his feet. Only as he gripped his arm more tightly did he discover that his friend was soaked through and shivering. Guilt flooded him. He had been going along uninjured and warm all this time, almost sweating with exertion under the weight of his flier's jacket, while Dex had been catching a chill a mere six inches away. "Bloody hell, man, why didn't you say you were cold?"

"I'm okay. Besides, this way we aren't both handicapped, right?"

"That's ridiculous. Here," he said, and began to undo the fastenings on his jacket.

"No. Keep it on."

There was a hard note in Dex's voice that Joe heard rarely but recognized as nonnegotiable. His hand faltered. As little as he liked to admit it, the engineer was right. Like he was now, healthy and unhurt, he could make good time cross-country, fight off attacks, and even carry his companion if worst came to worst. That would all be much more difficult if he let the weather weaken him. He was the strong one at the moment, and he had to stay that way for both of their sakes.

"...Fine," he relented. "But we're going to find somewhere to stop for the night as soon as we're back in the trees. We can't go on stumbling around in the dark like this." As much as he wanted to put distance between them and the crash site, halting would be for the best. He hadn't been able to check his compass since night had fallen, and there were no stars to guide them either. For all he knew they were backtracking without realizing it.

"I would have made your watch luminescent," Dex said ruefully, seeming to read his thoughts, "but there's new evidence out about radium paint being toxic and I didn't want to risk it. It's bad enough that all the dials in your plane are coated in it. Well… _were_ coated in it."

"And what will you do for the new plane, then, if radium paint is out?" Joe pulled him forward as he asked the question, trying to keep them moving.

"Dunno. I'll have to put some time into that, I guess, and find a safer alternative. You can't fly in the dark without instruments, and I know nothing's going to stop you from flying in the dark, so..."

He trailed off, and they walked on. After a while they found the forest again, and when they had reached its inky heart Joe stopped. The pattering of the storm was still audible high over their heads, but his flashlight showed that the ground was relatively dry. There was plenty of open space between the massive tree trunks for them to stretch out and rest their tired bodies. The single thing wrong with the location was that it lacked any line-of-sight protection. Had there been brambles and bushes to disperse the light Joe would have liked to start a small fire, if only for long enough to warm Dex after their wet traipse. Without knowing how far the flames would be visible, though, he didn't dare.

But the place would have to do for tonight, because he could feel the other man beginning to sag against him. "Sit down," he bade, and helped him scoot back into a cradle of thick roots. That done, Joe occupied himself with wrapping the head of the flashlight in gauze so that he could set it aside without broadcasting their position to anyone who happened to glance through the trees. When he was finished the torch acted like a weak lantern, casting just enough of a glow to let him see exactly how dripping and muddy Dex was. Pursing his lips, he stripped off his jacket. "Not a word," he ordered as he wrapped the warm garment around his engineer's trembling shoulders. "I'm not going to get wet sitting here, so you have no argument to make."

Dex didn't object. What he _did_ do was flinch when Joe reached over to pop up the collar of the jacket and accidentally grazed his ear. "Sorry," Dex apologized. "That's the bad one."

Joe would have just frowned and let the reaction go had the light not caught the back of his hand. A watery streak of crimson had appeared there, and his eyes widened as he deduced its source. "You're bleeding," he ground out. "Did a branch catch you as we walked? Do you remember?"

"I don't think so, but maybe. I was kind of just putting one foot in front of the other by the end there. I must not have felt the blood because of the rain."

"Hold still." Joe lifted their makeshift lantern to see if there was anything he could do for this new damage. As he located the source of the problem, his face paled. "You didn't get hit with a branch," he reported tersely. "The blood's...the blood's coming from inside."

Dex didn't look half as worried about that fact as Joe thought he ought to. "It must be because Overmeyer fired his gun right next to my head. That ear's been bothering me ever since, remember?"

"Yes, but..." But Joe had never seen the aftereffects of auricular trauma before. What he _had_ seen were two separate cases of people walking away from violent events with apparently minor injuries only to begin bleeding from their ears and noses a few hours later. In both of those instances the stricken individuals had grown delirious, experienced seizures, then passed into comas and died. To be fair those cases had shown signs of confusion and emotional instability hours before their cracked skulls had killed them, but Dex's lack of such symptoms didn't lend him much relief. "Is there a chance you might have hit your head during the crash?"

"Well yeah, there's a chance. But I really don't think I did. Not enough to count, anyway." Dex read his expression with a practiced air before giving him a gentle, if slightly exasperated, smile. "Relax, Cap. We've both had our fair share of concussions before, and I don't have any of the usual symptoms."

"Except that your ear is bleeding," Joe countered.

"Which can be explained by Overmeyer's proximity when he fired his gun."

"But-"

"But _nothing_ , Joe," Dex cut him off. "I'm not going to wake up dead in the morning, all right? Deaf, maybe," he said wryly, "but not dead."

"It shouldn't be doing that, though!"

"No, it probably shouldn't be. But it is, and there's nothing we can do about it except shove in some gauze and hope it doesn't get worse. So why worry, huh? You'll just work yourself into another tizzy."

" _Another_ tizzy _?_ What does that mean, exactly?"

Dex's eyes flashed knowingly. "It means that earlier you were more upset about the fact that the C-47 crashed with me in it than you were about your own plane blowing up." He paused then, and when he went on his gaze had softened. "Come on; do you really think I'd have noticed a detail like that if I was fixing to check out permanently?"

"...I think you'll still be noticing things five minutes after you're dead, Dex," Joe answered. "That's just who you are." There was no heat in his words, since Dex had won and they both knew it. Neither of them said anything more on the matter as Joe cut off a small piece of clean bandage and handed it over so that Dex could press it gingerly into his own ear. "Well," he said when the air had cleared, "if you aren't going to die then we'd best get some sleep. I suspect that we have a long way to go tomorrow, and without your machine to help them our side isn't likely to make much progress in this direction in the meantime."

"Yeah...so much for getting the first force fields up and running by the end of the week." The same note of sadness that had tinged Dex's voice when they'd spoken of Tony and Reg was present now, and Joe shot him a curious look. "Two of the greatest things I've ever created were destroyed today," the engineer explained. "The generator, and your plane. When you pour yourself into projects like them – when you help them grow from a vague wisp of an idea into solid, material things – you get attached to them. They become more like people than objects. And it hurts when something bad happens to them." A beat passed. "It hurts a lot, actually. Especially when you end up having to destroy them yourself."

Joe watched him blink rapidly a few times, and wondered if he was holding back tears. "...Dex?"

"Mm-hmm?"

"I know what you mean." Thinking about his plane made his throat thicken with grief. They'd had some good adventures together, him and his old h110d. Virtually every part of her had been replaced or revamped or upgraded at some point, but there had still been a feeling of continuity there that no new fighter would be able to evoke. It was the end of an era, and not even the fact that his girl had taken a squad of Nazis out with her could soothe the sting he felt at her loss.

"...Yeah, you do. If anyone understands what I mean when I say stuff like that, it's you. And that's why we're friends. Because the things that would make everyone else in the world start to think that I actually did have a concussion are exactly the things that let _you_ know I really don't." With that Dex gave him a tired smile, leaned his head back against the tree, and closed his eyes. "G'night, Cap. See you in the morning."

Joe was too moved by the truth of the other man's statement to reply right away. By the time he'd regathered his wits and made to answer, Dex's slow, easy breathing marked him as fast asleep. "...Good night, Dex," he whispered anyway as he settled down beside him and clicked off the flashlight. They were plunged into total darkness, but he was close enough to feel Dex's heat and that was enough to reassure him. "And you'd better."

* * *

 **Author's Note: I will be posting the next chapter of this adventure between now and the end of April. If you're enjoying it, or if you like other pieces of mine across the several fandoms I've written in, I hope you'll consider voting for me in the 2016 Fanatic Fanfics Multi-Fandom Awards. To do so, just visit awards dot fanaticfanfics dot com. Search for paganpunk2 to see the categories I've been nominated in. Voting runs from April 11 2016 to May 2 2016.**

 **Also, you can check out my original (non fan-fiction) fiction as well as my travel writing by visiting www dot jleehazlett dot com. All of my stories are available for free for PDF download, so you can take them with you wherever you go. If you stop by, I hope you'll drop me a line and let me know what you think.**

 **As always, happy reading!**


	4. Chapter 4

**Author's Note: Hello again, all! Here's another chapter for you. I have some new original fiction up on my website at www dot jleehazlett dot com, too, as well as some travel writing. I hope you'll check it out.**

 **Happy reading!**

* * *

Joe awoke as the first daylight began to brighten the forest floor. His muscles were stiff from the awkward position in which he'd slept, but feeling cramped was something he was used to. After a cautious glance told him that there were no Nazis lying in wait nearby he stood up. Then he indulged his aching limbs in a long, luxurious stretch, biting his lip to contain his groan of contentment. So long as the nights didn't get any colder, he thought, they could camp their way back to safety just fine.

It was his stomach that reminded him that they needed more than a safe place to sleep in order to survive. The rumble it gave as he shook himself to full wakefulness surprised him with its volume, and he glanced at Dex to see if the sound had disturbed him. But Dex slept on, so Joe stole away to search for something edible in the open forest nearby.

The rain had stopped during the night, and now the low trickle of a creek could be heard. Joe struck out in that direction first, knowing that they would need water even if he couldn't find any food. A small, swift-flowing course presented itself a hundred or so yards from camp, and to Joe's satisfaction there was a tangle of wild berry plants growing near the water's edge. Untucking his shirt, he made a small bowl of excess fabric and filled it with as many of the bright fruits as he could carry. "Dex," he grinned as when he returned to find his friend blinking blearily about for him. "I brought breakfast."

"Great."

Joe frowned. There had been no real enthusiasm in that one-word reply, which was uncharacteristic for Dex. His pained expression was out of place, too, especially considering his history of pushing through injuries in order to keep working. "...It's your ear, isn't it?"

"Yeah." Dex gestured to a sodden red lump on the ground beside him. "Last night's gauze."

"Is it still bleeding now?"

"...Do I have to answer that question?"

"You just did." Pursing his lips, Joe knelt beside him in the dirt. "Well...eat, anyway. I'll find you some more aspirin when you're done."

They ate the berries he'd collected one at a time. For Joe this was an old tactic he'd learned during a less savory portion of his life when food had been scarce and drawing out its migration into his body had been the only way to trick himself into feeling temporarily full. Watching Dex, though, he began to suspect that a different goal lay behind the other man's slow meal. The engineer was barely chewing, and every motion of his jaw seemed to intensify his pain. If this was evidence of how much Dex's ear was troubling him, it was no wonder that Joe hadn't seen any gum in his hands since they'd left England. "If only we could do something about it," he burst out after a bad wince.

Dex shrugged. "We can do something. It's just that we can only do what we did before; keep it stuffed and feed me pain meds. And get out of Nazi territory," he added. "That would be nice."

"Agreed. But can you still walk if your head hurts that badly?"

"I'll manage." A smile flickered across his face. "And if I can't manage, then we'll manage. We always do, right?"

"...Right." But they'd never had to manage quite like this before. It was a long walk to their lines, Joe was positive, and while he was perfectly willing to carry Dex the whole way such a necessity would draw out the trip and increase the danger. The prospect of camping their way to Paris had lost the slight shine it had had when he woke up; now all he wanted to do was deliver Dex to a clean and well-staffed hospital and hover near his bed until that damned bleeding stopped.

He kept all of that to himself as they readied themselves for a day of travel. A brief stop at the creek gave them the chance to re-hydrate, and then they set off. The previous night's clouds had dissipated, leaving the sky between the leaves bright and crisp. It was the sort of day that was made for idle flying, and Joe felt a fresh twinge of grief for his plane. Would any stick he sat behind ever feel so _right_ again?

"I'm already working on it, Cap," a promise came from beside him. "Your plane will be the first thing on my list once I get the force field generator rebuilt. That won't take too long; I've got most of the schematics memorized, so the biggest issue will be fabricating the custom parts all over again. Even if I start from scratch on your plane instead of recycling a standard airframe, it should be done by New Year's."

Joe tried not to wince at the idea of spending three months using one of the regular Legion aircraft. Their planes were years ahead of even the Luftwaffe's best fighters, but none of them had been specially built for him. He wanted to ask if there was any way to speed up the process, but he held his tongue. It was going to be difficult to get Dex to take time off to heal properly as it was; making him feel like he was letting Joe down with an end-of-year deadline wouldn't help anything. "It sounds like the best Christmas ever," he said instead.

"Yeah…I just wish it wasn't necessary." A beat passed. "I can't figure it out, Cap. I can't figure out why they would betray us. They'd worked for us for years, and there's no way they'd been planning something like this all that time. So _why_? What pushed them into it?"

Joe agreed that the plan had to have come together quickly, but he had no real insight to offer. Dixon and Overmeyer had been with the Legion since before Pearl Harbor, and Norton had signed on before the Totenkopf incident; they were known quantities, or at least he'd thought they were. "All I've been able to think of is money," he shared. "We paid them well, but who knows what the Nazis might have offered."

Dex's brow knit. "…Dixon did like to gamble," he mused. "I've heard more than one of my techs brag about cleaning him out in poker game. I could see him needing money. But Norton didn't seem to have that kind of a habit, and he was the best paid of all three of them besides. As for Overmeyer…well, in retrospect it might not have been about money for Overmeyer."

"Meaning what?"

"Meaning Overmeyer had something else to hide." Dex shot Joe an uncomfortable glance. "He made a pass at me a few months ago."

"…He _what_?"

"You heard me."

Joe was gaping. "Why didn't you tell me? I could have done something about it!"

"What, Cap? Really, what were you going to do about it?"

"Telling him to stay the hell away from you leaps to mind."

"All that would have done was embarrass him worse than he already was when I made it clear that I wasn't interested. Besides, then he might have thought that you had an ulterior motive for defending me."

"I would have preferred him thinking that to him trying to sell you to the Nazis in retribution for his broken heart."

"Maybe so, but it wouldn't have done the Legion's reputation any good if he'd decided to spread his suspicion around. Just because we don't care what people do in their off-time doesn't mean that the rest of the world doesn't."

"Yes, well…still." They passed silently through a small sun-dappled glade. "It doesn't seem like a reason for betrayal, though," Joe opined when they were in the trees again. "He must have known you'd keep his secret. Even if he was worried at first, you said he had months to figure out that you weren't going to hold it against him."

"True. But that's a pretty big secret to leave in the hands of someone who isn't equally culpable. Overmeyer didn't have any good reason to trust me; we knew each other, sure, but-"

Dex broke off suddenly and stopped walking. Joe halted, too, and undid the strap over his pistol. "Where?" he whispered.

"It's not Nazis," Dex managed. His hand rose to cover his ear, and he closed his eyes.

"It's my head."

Joe stepped closer. "What's changed?"

"Nothing changed, it was just…really intense there for a second." The pain lines etching Dex's forehead eased slowly. "…Wow," he sighed when he finally let his hand fall back to his side. "Whatever Overmeyer's motive might have been, he sure gave me something to remember him by."

"Let me see if there's any more aspirin," Joe said. He was digging in the first aid bag as he spoke, and only looked up when Dex told him not to bother. "…What do you mean, 'don't bother'?"

"It won't help," the engineer answered. "This morning's dose didn't, at least, and I'm not sure last night's did anything either. I think I was just too exhausted to not sleep."

"Then what?" Joe asked.

"Got any morphine?"

"That's not funny."

"I wasn't joking. And I know you don't have any in there, even though you probably should have. I couldn't take it now anyway; we have to keep walking. I was just thinking of tonight."

"If it's that bad-"

"You're not carrying me. Not so long as I can still manage a decent pace."

"So give it an hour or two, then?" Joe asked archly.

Dex sent him a cross look. "You're not helping."

"…I know." Joe's shoulders slumped as a sense of helplessness settled over him. Aspirin being useless meant that he could do nothing, absolutely nothing, to mitigate the other man's injuries. His discontent over that fact was coming out as annoyance, which Dex didn't deserve to have aimed at him. "I don't like this, Dex," he apologized. "For obvious reasons."

"It's not my idea of a fun time either, Cap. But it is what it is. So can we maybe stop arguing and start walking?"

"Yes. Of course. But if you need to stop," Joe added, "say something before you get to the point of falling down."

"I will. I promise."

"…All right. Let's go, then."

Joe let Dex walk a little in front of him so that he could set the pace. They didn't speak again until a continuous rumble rose in the distance. "Sounds heavy," Dex remarked.

"Tanks, maybe?" They had been avoiding open spaces all day, but Joe wouldn't put it past the Germans to patrol older sections of forest with tracked vehicles.

"Yeah. But I don't think it's _just_ tanks." He cocked his head to listen. Joe, familiar with this particular stance of his friend's, waited quietly. Dex had a knack for identifying machinery by its operating noises alone, and that talent had saved their lives on more than one occasion. The question now was whether or not the ability had been hampered by Overmeyer's pistol blast. "…There are tanks and trucks," Dex said finally. "Big trucks, like troop carriers. I think I heard a few smaller staff cars, too. There must be a road not far from here."

"I don't suppose any of it sounded like _our_ machinery?"

Dex smirked. "Not even you have that good of luck, Cap."

"Damn." Joe considered their options. They had crossed a few country lanes since they'd left the crash site, but no major byways. Approaching while there were large numbers of men and equipment moving by would be dangerous. There was Dex to consider, too; limping through the forest was one thing, but running from Nazis was something else. If they were spotted while spying the engineer wouldn't be able to flee. On the other hand, any information they gathered about the enemy could prove useful if they managed to make it back to their own lines.

"It might turn out to be important that someone knows what direction they're heading," Dex put in. "If we find a radio later today or tomorrow, the information we could relay should still be pertinent."

"You won't be able to get away quickly if they see us," Joe countered. "And we're not splitting up." The last time they'd parted ways the other man had nearly been killed; whatever they decided to do now, Joe was determined that they would do it together.

"So we'll be careful. We can't just sit here and not at least _try_ , Cap. If they're gearing up for a new offensive then anything we learn might save lives."

"It's _our_ lives I'm the most worried about at the moment."

"Yeah, but…"

Dex trailed off, and after a moment Joe sighed. "Yes, but," he repeated, giving in. "You're right. We can't stand by and do nothing." He didn't like it, but he knew it would haunt both of them if it turned out that their failure to scout had cost lives. "If we're going to get any closer while they're still nearby, though, we'll be doing so quietly and carefully."

"I hadn't exactly planned on breaking into a rendition of 'Yankee Doodle' any time soon, so…whenever you're ready."

They might be preparing to sneak up on a caravan of heavily armed enemy soldiers, but so long as Dex was fit to joke Joe was willing to smile. "Right," he smirked. "Then let's go."


End file.
